Embodiments of the inventive concepts described herein relate to a semiconductor memory, and more particularly, relate to a memory module having a backup function.
A semiconductor memory refers to a memory device that is implemented using semiconductor such as silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), or the like. Semiconductor memory devices are roughly divided into volatile memory devices and nonvolatile memory devices.
A volatile memory device refers to a memory device which loses data stored therein at power-off. The volatile memory device includes a static random access memory (SRAM), a dynamic ram (DRAM), a synchronous DRAM or the like. A nonvolatile memory device refers to a memory device which retains data stored therein even at power-off. The nonvolatile memory device includes a read only memory (ROM), a programmable ROM (PROM), an electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), an electrically erasable and programmable ROM (EEPROM), a flash memory device, a phase-change RAM (PRAM), a magnetic RAM (MRAM), a resistive RAM (RRAM), a ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), or the like.
The flash memory device is widely used as a storage device in virtue of advantages such as large capacity, low noise, low power, and the like. In particular, a solid state drive (SSD) which is based on a flash memory is used as mass storage in a personal computer, a notebook, a workstation, a server system, and the like. Typical SSD devices are connected with a computing system based on a SATA interface and/or a PCI-express interface. However, as the amount of data processed on a computing system increases, data throughput becomes greater than the data bandwidth or communication speed of an interface connected with the SSD devices, thereby causing data bottleneck. Since the data bottleneck causes a decrease in the performance of the computing system, various techniques are being developed to improve the performance.